Chapter 3
The first thing Milo did when he came to was scream. It took his body a few seconds to realise that his bones and eyeballs were no longer melting. The second thing he did was gape at his taloned fingers and the tiny black scales covering his arms. He stumbled to his feet unsteadily and was dismayed to find a spiked tail and a pair of wings protruding from his back. The room was cast in darkness but to his eyes the room might as well have been bathed in daylight. As far as he could tell the room was made entirely out of some sort of black metal which reminded him of onyx. He searched the room until his eyes landed on a giant onyx throne upon which a familiar figure sat. Lilith had shed her human disguise. Her body was now covered in onyx scales, her head was crowned by black horns and a pair of wings, and a tail were visible behind her back.
“What did you do to me?!”
Lilith smiled down at him like the goddess she was.
“You’re finally awake.”
“What the fuck did you do to me!?”
Lilith stood up and then made a few motions with her hands, a few seconds later a mirror set in an onyx frame appeared out of thin air in front of Milo. He studied his reflection with horror on his face. Her voice sounded pleased when she replied.
“I have remade you into an instrument fit for the goddess of demons.”
Milo groaned and stepped past the mirror to glare up at Lilith.
“You incompetent idiot, how am I supposed to dominate a competition of champions in a complete unfamiliar body!?”
Lilith rolled her eyes and Milo briefly considered trying to kill the goddess even if it meant his own death. When she answered her voice was dismissive.
“I am older than the solar system you were born in, do you really think I haven’t considered every aspect of this plan down to the smallest detail?”
Milo looked down at his clawed feet and was about to point at them to contradict her when the claws suddenly vanished into wisps of black smoke. He looked over his shoulder and saw that the same thing had happened to his wings and tail. Still, something was different from his own body. He walked back to the mirror and took in his new visage. The changes were startling.
His brown hair had turned jet black and his green eyes were now the same deep blood red colour as Lilith’s. Aside from that his facial features were finer and more refined turning him from a decent looking athlete into something akin to a model. He also estimated that he had gained about half a meter in height without somehow losing any of his muscle mass. In short, he looked like some sort of satanic demigod. He walked past the mirror again and stared up at Lilith.
“You’ve messed with my height and reach.”
Lilith looked surprised at the words.
“That’s it?”
“You changing my hair and face is not the strangest thing that has happened today, but why mess with my height and reach, I’ll have to adjust my fighting style.”
Lilith stood up and walked down to meet him. He almost flinched when she placed a clawed hand on his shoulder.
“Your increased mass was unavoidable, merging humans and demons is not easy even for me. I’ve created thousands of hybrids over the years, but you are without a doubt my finest work yet.”
Her hand suddenly slipped away as she sagged, Milo caught her before she could hit the ground. He steadied her but kept his hand around her shoulder just in case she fell again.
“What’s wrong with you?”
When Lilith answered her voice was slightly strained.
“I had to draw heavily upon my personal reserves of arcane energy and spirit essence during your creation. Normally such an act would leave my dimension open to invasion but thanks to the temporary peace in place I should be able to recover by the time the contest is over.”
Milo narrowed his eyes at her.
“The way my body looked when I woke up… you didn’t create just another hybrid, did you?”
Lilith scoffed.
“If I wanted just another hybrid I would’ve chosen one of my children to champion me. No, you are unique, I made you as close to myself as I possibly could.”
“So those scales and claws and stuff, I can change forms? like you do?”
“Your body is still new; it will take time before it can store enough arcane energy to maintain a full demonic metamorphosis for longer than a few moments. My guess it will take at least a few years before you can maintain the form for longer than a minute.”
“Years you say? And how long do we have until this contest of champions starts?”
“Each god and goddess get a week with their champion.”
Milo groaned, he had always been beyond talented in anything fighting related but a week was not enough time to adjust to a new body. His only hope was that the other champions would be going trough a similar process, thus levelling the playing field.
“So, what’s next?”
Lilith turned and looked at a shadowy corner at the far end of the room. Milo was wondering what she was looking at when the shadows suddenly moved. A human face with one pale red eye and one blood red eye stepped out of the shadows. The woman looked alot like Lilith in her human form except she was shorter and her features less refined, at a halloween party she probably would've passed as a cosplayer of some sort.
“Now my dear champion, we introduce you to your troops.”
This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
The unknown woman knelt in front of Lilith.
“Lily, tell each order to assemble 50 of their best members in the upper courtyard.”
The woman rose and inclined her head in obedience.
“As you command.”
Milo expected the unknown woman to walk or perhaps jog from the room. Instead, she vanished into a cloud of shadows. A second later the shadowy cloud was gone along with the woman.
“Did she just teleport?”
Lilith waved her hand dismissively as if a woman teleporting out of the room was nothing special.
“Lily leads the order of shadows, that spell is far from the most impressive thing she can do.”
“The order of shadows?”
“One of four orders into which all higher demons are inducted once they reach adulthood. The order of shadows is mainly comprised of scouts, infiltrators, and assassins.”
“And you have the leader of such an ‘elite’ organisation running errands for you?”
Lilith snorted.
“I am a goddess, and all my children are mine to do with as I wish. Now follow me and I will show you what kind of warriors you will lead.”
They made their way out of the throne room and into a corridor. A long row of giant hulking figures flanked the corridor on either side. For a moment Milo thought they were statues, then one of them moved its head in his direction and sniffed. The creature looked like somebody had cross bread and a dog and a polar bear. Aside from the giant forwards facing horns protruding from its head the creature looked nothing like Lilith in her demon form. And judging by the ridiculously thick set of plate armour it wore it had no scales under the armour either. Judging by the giant Warhammer and shield the creatures held their strength was many times beyond anything human. Milo pointed at one of the hulking creatures.
“What are those?”
“An elder demon, their race were my original worshippers, their original home world was lost in the war, but their species remains in my realm. They predate humanity by millions of thousands of years.”
“Elder demon? Does that mean there are more variations of their species?”
“Indeed, unlike my hybrids who enjoy unnatural longevity, pure demons don’t die of old age, and they never stop growing. The ones you see in this corridor are all at least ten thousand years old. As for their variations, they all start out as ‘workers’ but those creatures are dumb as rocks and need direct supervision to be effective. After a few hundred years of growth workers become large enough to be classified as soldiers, it is this variation which makes up the bulk of my armies and they are barely smart enough to understand direct orders. If a soldier somehow manages to live a few thousand years they will eventually become an elder demon. These hulking brutes are about as smart as a regular human and serve as elite shock troops and leaders of their lesser kin.”
Milo stared back at the elder demons standing guard.
“They sound like useful creatures, how many do you have?”
Lilith sighed.
“The war has taken a heavy toll on my troops, there are only a few thousand elder demons left in my realm.”
“What about the workers and soldiers?”
“I create workers with spawning pits, their numbers are infinite as long as I live. As for the soldiers, right now I think there are about half million in my realm, far less than I’d like.”
Milo whistled.
“And they will all be under my command during this contest?”
Lilith scoffed.
“Of course not, it would take you at least a year, probably more to gather enough spirit essence to summon all the demons in my realm regardless of how successful you are. No, you will probably be commanding less than a hundred thousand for at least a year.”
Milo was starting to suffer from information overload, still he tried to keep up.
“I thought spirit essence was something gods siphoned from their worshippers.”
“It is, but for the purposes of the contest we have granted our champions the ability to collect spirit essence in our place. You will be able to acquire it by defeating enemies and many other methods.”
“And I can only use it summon troops?”
Lilith shook her head.
“You can use it to summon anything from my dimension. Workers, soldiers, food, weapons, armour and even buildings.”
Milo felt like he’d been sort of mislead.
“You said I was going to lead your armies, but you’re going to send me to this planet on my own aren’t you?”
Lilith rolled her eyes.
“You will be starting with enough spirit essence to summon a few things in the start, after that it’s up to you to gather more. Yet another concession made to the weaker factions…”
“The weaker factions?”
“Not every god has worshippers as martial as mine. I am one of the strongest gods in pure combat, but there are other gods who have only survived by relying on diplomacy and tricks. These gods obviously did not want to send their champions into a contest of pure strength, so we had to add rules to give them a fighting chance.”
“Is there anything else you haven’t told me?”
Lilith’s only answer was a mischievous smile.
They arrived in the courtyard to find several hundred hybrids waiting for them. The crowd was divided into four equal groups, each standing in orderly ranks behind a single person. Milo recognised the one called Lily in front of a group of men and women wearing dark leather and black cloaks.
The second group stood behind a giant man in the most beautiful heavy plate armour Milo had ever seen. This man had the same vibrant blood-coloured eyes as himself and Lilith. The group standing behind him was mostly men and every single one of them was wearing plate armour.
The third group stood behind a tall man with a lean frame. He also shared Lilith’s eyes but instead of armour he wore a magnificent robe covered in red symbols. In his right hand he held a black staff crowned with a glowing ruby. The group behind him all wore robes, they also had the highest ratio of women to men out of all the groups.
The fourth and final group stood behind a broad-shouldered man in a full set of light weight plate armour. This man also shared Lilith’s eyes and had an air of command about him. The group who stood behind him wore similar armour although a good portion only wore leather with chain mail. They were also the only group with a nearly equal divide between men and women.
Milo followed Lilith into the centre of the courtyard. The goddess stopped and then waved a hand in his direction.
“This is Milo, my new champion!”
Milo was so used to crowds applauding when he was introduced that the complete silence which followed felt almost unnatural. Lilith on the other hand continued as if the crowd’s lack of a reaction didn’t matter to her any more than an insect squashed beneath her boot.
“When you arrive on Archeus you will listen to his commands as if he were me.”
Again, nothing but silence. Lilith pointed at each of the people standing in front of their groups and beckoned them forward. When they were close enough, she continued.
“The contest begins in one week, it is my intent to provide our new champion with as much training as we can until then. To that end I will let him choose which of you will be his primary instructor.”
None of the four said a word. It was becoming clear by now that Lilith didn’t suffer interruptions or refusals. The goddess indicated Lily with a hand.
“You’ve already met Lily, like I said earlier she is the master of the order of shadows. They specialise in scouting, infiltrations, and assassination. She has a good grasp of shadow magic, although she tends to focus that mastery on utility spells such as teleportation and concealment. Unfortunately, such spells take a long time to master, and her weapon of choice are daggers and a bow, both weapons which you have no use for.”
If Lily was angry at being told she had nothing of use to teach ‘the chosen one’ she didn’t show it. Lilith went on, this time indicating the man in the light plate armour.
“This is Beldan, he is my general and most trusted servant. He is master of the order of war. The order of war specialises in tactics, strategy and logistics, they are the officers of my armies. He can teach you how to lead armies, how to defend and attack fortifications and perhaps most importantly, how to organise the logistics of several conquering armies at once. He has much to teach you but given our limited time I would not choose him as your primary instructor.”
Lilith moved her hand to the man in the robes.
“This is Seti. He is the master of the elemental order. They harness the elements of my dimension to fuel spells of every kind. Seti’s mastery of fire and shadow is second only to my own. He can teach you everything from how to heal to how to incinerate a small army from a distance. Right now, you are nothing more than a peerless warrior with no magic to call upon. And while I have no doubt you can hack apart anything on Archeus in a weapons duel, you are at a severe disadvantage against magic users.”
Lilith was all but telling him to pick Seti. Normally such heavy-handed prodding would’ve annoyed him, but in this case, he fully agreed with her reasoning. Still, he was curious about the man in full plate. He pointed at the man in question.
“And him?”
Lilith didn’t sigh but her dismissive tone made it clear that she could barely be bothered to introduce the plated man.
“This is Nero, he is master of the order of warriors and my former champion. His order specialises in physical combat, they are the elite core of my army, my knights. Normally I’d say he could teach you how to fight against a single foe or many, but we both know there’s absolutely nothing he can teach you.”
As harsh as her assessment was Milo couldn’t help but agree with it. The last thing he wanted was to waste time on was getting fighting lessons from inferior warriors. He turned back to the man in the robes and was about chose him when a fist slammed into his shoulder. The force behind the blow was tremendous and he barely managed to keep his balance as he spun around.
The big warrior introduced as Nero was glaring bloody murder at him, and Milo immediately assumed a fighting stance. Fighting without weapons was hardly his forte but his martial arts skills were still good enough that he could’ve had a career as a mediocre pro if he’d wanted. And fortunately for him his opponent was wearing heavy plate armour which made him exceptionally susceptible to judo throws and jiu jitsu holds.
Before Milo could counterattack Lilith stepped between him and Nero. He expected Lilith to perhaps scold Nero or at least stop the fight, but of course that was not her intent at all.
“Nero, once again you disgrace yourself. If you wish to challenge my new champion, you will do so when he is armoured and armed. Lily, go to the armoury and fetch a full set of lightweight plate armour and a greatsword.”
Nero spat on the ground at Milo’s feet and then held out his hand. A few seconds later black smoke coalesced into a wicked looking black greatsword.
A normal person probably would’ve been scared off by the sword or the murderous glare on Nero’s face. Milo on the other hand could barely stop himself from frowning at the blade in Nero’s hand. Whatever idiot had designed the sword had gone full out for style over function. Not only did the weapon look unbalanced as hell, but it also didn’t even have a crossguard.
Lily returned five minutes later with the armour and weapon Lilith had requested. Unlike Nero’s ridiculously ornate armour and idiotic sword, both the armour and sword she had fetched looked ordinary, which was exactly what he had hoped for.
The broad-shouldered man named Beldan helped Milo into the armour and then everyone except Lilith cleared out of the middle of the courtyard.
Milo eyed his opponent and had to supress a smirk when he saw just how full of openings Nero’s stance was. Magic, demons, and gods, all of this was new to him, but fighting duels, that was his bread and butter, and he was about to show everyone in the courtyard who was at the top of the pecking order.